Group to safeguard children online

The Government is to introduce new measures to help protect children from internet paedophiles.

Home Secretary John Reid said a new task group was being set up to look at tackling the problem of online child abusers.

Speaking on the GMTV Sunday Programme, Mr Reid said he wanted to introduce a "kite mark" standard for computer programmes so parents could feel confident their children were safe on the web.

He said "protecting children was probably the biggest obligation of a civilised society."

The Home Secretary said: "We are setting up a task group with the industry to protect kids from what has become one of the greatest threats of abuse, which is the World Wide Web, the internet.

"Mums and dads who are getting familiar with the internet know the dangers to their kids.

"What they don't know is which of the systems of software which are available to them will actually protect their children.

"We are working with service providers and the industry to get a standard kite mark so that parents will know when buying a system that it will do what it says on the box, that it will protect kids from approaches made via the internet and the potential abuse from that contact."

He said certain phrases would trigger an alarm which could be activated on the parents' computer.

Details of the new measures, which Mr Reid called a "major step forward", will be announced on Wednesday.